


when you see me like this

by thotgreeves



Series: I can barely recall (but it’s all coming back to me) [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: And Then Forgot About It, Crossing Timelines, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Richie and Eddie had an Epic Gay Teenage Romance, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 20:13:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20663108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thotgreeves/pseuds/thotgreeves
Summary: “Mike.” Richie says, pouncing on Mike as he exits the men’s restroom. Mike clutches his heart like he’s just been shot. “Hey, Mike. I know this sounds kinda crazy, but uh-” He lets out a nervous laugh. “Do you remember what the deal with me and Eddie was, man?”Mike looks troubled. “You mean you don’t remember yet?”“No, dude, I don’t remember shit.” Richie says. “But I’m starting to think there’s a reason why I’ve been trying to bone brown-eyed, loud-mouthed twinks for the past twenty fucking years.”OR, the one where Richie and Eddie race to remember each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey, so this is my fandom debut, and i had a wildly ambitious idea to do a fix-it fic that kinda follows the movie timeline, only reddie were teenage boyfriends and forgot about it. awkward. this is part one of what i think should be a series of four installations!

**Present Day - Derry, 2016.**

“Mike.” Richie says, pouncing on Mike as he exits the men’s restroom. Mike clutches his heart like he’s just been shot. “Hey, Mike. I know this sounds kinda crazy, but uh-” He lets out a nervous laugh. “Do you remember what the deal with me and Eddie was, man?”

Mike looks troubled. “You mean you don’t remember yet?”

“No, dude, I don’t remember shit.” Richie says. “But I’m starting to think there’s a reason why I’ve been trying to bone brown-eyed, loud-mouthed twinks for the past twenty fucking years.”

And. Jesus-

Where the fuck did _that_ just come from?

“Okay, Rich.” Mike nods, pacifyingly, indicating his head back to the restroom door. “Let’s talk.”

Richie can’t believe he’s only been back in Derry for the total sum of one hour and he’s already outed himself to a guy he completed forgot existed up until last night.

Nailed it, Tozier.

“Woah. Holy oversharing, Batman.” Richie says, in place of actually being able to explain himself. He follows Mike into the single restroom, locking the door behind him for good measure. “That was, uh. A joke. I’m very funny.”

For some reason, Mike doesn’t seem fazed. He leans back against the sink and gives Richie a sympathetic smile.

“You really don’t remember anything?”

Being reunited with Eddie Kaspbrak has Richie knocked for a loop. He almost thought he was going to have a heart attack when he first set eyes on him - his pulse had quickened, his heart did a funny little flip, and he had kind of wanted to throw up again.

Getting drunk had been the only way Richie could distract himself from how every other word out of his mouth had been ‘_Eddie_’ since he had sat down.

He feels, intuitively, like he’s operating on the same level he did when he was thirteen, his every action screaming, _Eddie, look at me_, without really understanding why.

“I have, like, the weirdest sense of déjà vu right now, dude.” Richie says, and he knows he’s buzzed, but he’s pretty much _always_ buzzed, so he knows it’s not just the alcohol that’s making the words tumble out of his mouth when he says, “All I remember about Eddie is dumb shit, like saying I’d fuck his Mom and spitting loogies and - and burying my face in his pillow after a sleepover because it still smelled like that fruity peach conditioner he uses- hell, I think he still uses it, Mike-”

Mike’s eyebrows jump into his hairline. “Okay. That’s not a bad start-”

“But it’s like there’s this amnesiatic _cloud_ blocking all of my memories.” Richie continues, talking over him. “Why the hell can’t I remember anything?”

“Don’t try to rush it.” Mike says, holding up a hand. “I know how crazy this must sound, but trust me, Richie, the more time you spend together, the more your memories are gonna come rushing back.”

“Okay.” Richie nods, trying to smile, because Mike’s vagueness is making him feel faintly hysterical. “This cryptic thing you’re doing is _really_ cool and mysterious and all, Mikey, but I think it’d be a lot quicker if you just told me why I feel like I have goddamn _hearts_ in my eyes every time I look at that pissy little germaphobe?”

Mike sighs, shifting like he wants to leave. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Richie-”

“Why not?”

“Because I have something more important that I need to tell everyone and I don’t want to spook you more than you already are.” Mike says, in a voice that makes the hairs on the back of Richie’s neck stand up. It’s only now, under the dim shadows of the restroom lighting, that Richie notices how tired he looks. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think the others remember anything either.”

“Sorry, Mike, but that’s not a consolation, that’s bullshit.”

There’s a knock on the door. Richie bangs back automatically.

“Occupied!”

Mike stands and tries to reach around him for the door handle. “I think we should get back to the others.”

Richie stays pressed against the door. “Mike, please, what if Eddie remembers something I don’t?”

Mike’s face softens. “I don’t think he does.”

The banging on the door gets more urgent.

“I said it’s occupied, asshole!”

“It’s me, Rich.”

It’s Ben.

There’s a part of Richie that actually wants to cry from sheer frustration. “Fuck.”

“Look, I know this must be hard to take in right now, but please take my word for it.” Mike says, sounding a little desperate. “You just need more time.”

Richie groans, twisting away from Mike and throwing the door open.

“Sorry.” Ben says, standing in the doorway sheepishly, his hands in his pockets like he’s waiting for their permission to enter. Twenty-seven years and a rockin’ bod later, and Ben’s still apologizing for taking up too much space. “I, uh. I need to talk to Mike about something.”

Richie recognizes the look in Ben’s eyes, because he’s pretty sure its identical to the one in his own right now. Like a man in the desert that’s just spotted water in the distance. He noticed it the moment he came upon Ben embracing Bev in the parking lot, hands trembling on her back like he scarcely dared to believe she was real.

“Sure, buddy. ” Richie says tightly, clapping Ben on the back as he exits. “I hope you have more luck with Mystic Mike than I did.”

“Thought you fell in the toilet and drowned.” Eddie greets him when he returns. “Pity.”

“Hey, sorry, I tried to find you some tampons, Eddie, but then I realized it must be the menopause making you so bitchy, right?”

“Fuck you!”

“Beep beep, Richie.” Bev says, flicking his arm. A vague memory of Bev, short-haired and unflappable and always threatening to burn him with a cigarette, flickers into his mind and disappears just as quickly.

“Hey, remember that?” Bill says brightly. He points at Richie. “Beep beep!”

They all laugh, and Richie swigs his drink. “Oh, great, _that’s_ what you guys remember.”

Eddie tells him a lot of things, like how he’s been living in New York for the past ten years, which makes Richie want to scream, because he was breaking his back in the New York comedy scene for _five_ of those same shitty years before he moved to Chicago, his monotony only broken up by tour dates and various rehab stints. The knowledge that Eddie had been in such proximity to him the entire time is suddenly devastating, in a way that’s _way_ too intense to be feeling about some childhood friend that he barely even remembers.

Eddie gets drunker, and wants to arm wrestle, and shouts something ridiculous about taking their shirts off and kissing. His hands are startlingly soft to touch. When their palms clasp, Richie can feel their scars aligning, and he’s suddenly transported back in time, to a blood oath, and he remembers holding Eddie’s hand so tightly that he felt like he’d rather _die_ than let it go, and-

Yeah.

Richie’s going to need a _lot_ more alcohol to deal with this.

“Hey, Eddie, do you want to use two hands?” Richie grits out during their second round of arm wrestling, like Eddie isn’t putting up a pretty decent fight this time around. “You’re at a disadvantage, you know, since you still have baby hands-”

“Ugh, shut up, you smell like _axe_.” Eddie snarls. He sniffs then, leaning closer in a way that momentarily makes Richie’s brain short-circuit. “Have you - have you seriously not changed your body spray since you were _thirteen_?”

“Bitches love axe.” Richie grins, his heart skipping when he hears the others all groan at him in unison. “You’re the one still using your Mom’s hair conditioner.”

Eddie stiffens, then pulls back, like he’s also just realized that it’s fucking _weird_ to lean over and smell a guy at the dinner table.

Richie takes the opportunity to slam his hand back on the table whilst Eddie is too stunned to put up a fight.

Then Mike returns with Ben, and he tells them that the fucking clown is back, and Stan is dead, and Richie’s officially ready to peace the fuck out of Derry.

Three hours and a bottle of whisky later and he’s still in Derry.

Richie tells himself there’s still time to high-tail it out of here in the morning. He’s just too drunk to drive right now. He can’t leave in the middle of the night.

Not when he has Eddie in his bed.

After Mike and Bill had interrupted his getaway plans by crashing back into the townhouse to deliver yet more bad news, Richie had decided there was only one thing to do: get drunker.

Eddie had followed him to the bar, like Richie somehow knew he would. As much as they had been bickering all night, it also kind of felt like they had been sharing a single brain cell since they had left the restaurant –

_Mike is crazy, let’s leave, oh Bill’s crazy too, we’re really_ not _leaving? Then I need another drink_.

Only everything at the townhouse’s bar tasted like cheap crap. If this was his last night on Earth, Richie Tozier was going to go out on something a lot stronger than a shitty vodka soda.

“Hey, Eddie, screw these weak-sauce drinks.” Richie had said, dumping his glass straight in the trash. “I have good whiskey in my room and there’s no way in hell I’m getting killed by a demon clown before I drink it.”

The others’ hadn’t even questioned it when they retreated up the stairs together, just wished them goodnight. Richie wondered if he should be worried about that.

A boyish nervousness had washed over him once he found himself alone with Eddie, trying to shake the sense of déjà vu that kept lingering in the back of his mind. Richie could tell Eddie’s nerves were pretty frayed too, because he grabbed the whiskey from him and drank it straight from the bottle, only making a minor fuss about swapping spit with Richie.

“Pace yourself, Kaspbrak, I don’t want the others to think I’m trying to take advantage of you.”

“Please, I could drink you under the table, Tozier.”

“Eddie.” Richie had almost choked on his own laughter. “There’s no way you can out-drink me.”

“Oh, yeah, what makes you so fucking so sure about that?”

“’Cuz I’m pretty sure it’s biologically impossible, you’re like a foot shorter than me-”

“I’m average height, you lanky fuck!”

It didn’t take long until they were collapsed on the bed together after that, drunk and giggly and quite possibly delirious with exhaustion, trading insults and failing to trigger one another’s childhood memories.

“So, like. What the fuck is the deal with Ben and Bev and Bill?” Richie asks, his chest shaking with laughter. He isn’t sure why, but he’s finding everything hilarious now that he has Eddie pressed by his side, surreal and dream-like. “Talk about awkward.”

“Classic love triangle.” Eddie says with great confidence, then frowns like he isn’t sure why he knows that. “Ben’s totally in love with Bev.”

“Yeah, and I’m worried he’s gonna go all _Jason Bourne_ and beat my ass.” Richie says, smirking when Eddie makes a noise of confusion. “‘Cause I boned Bev, remember?”

“No you didn’t!” Eddie snits, then looks uncertain. “Did you?”

“Yeah.” Richie tries to keep a straight face, then splutters, full-on laughing when Eddie’s face twists into a scowl. “No, dude, how are you so naïve-?”

“God, you are such a creep.” Eddie gripes, wiping his cheek, because a bit of spittle might have got on him. “Hey, how do you know for _sure_ that you didn’t?”

“Believe me, I’d _definitely_ remember if I boned Bev. For more reasons than one.” Richie says, grimacing. He ignores Eddie’s questioning look and drops his voice, conspiratorially. “You know who I did bone though?

Eddie’s face pinches. “Who?”

“Your Mom.”

“Oh, screw you.” Eddie spits, taking the pillow from behind him and whacking Richie with it. There’s no real force behind the blow. “The woman’s dead, Richie, have some fucking respect.”

Richie’s about to retort when something catches him off-guard. He remembers, with startling clarity, standing in front of Eddie’s Mom on the day they had escaped the Neibolt house, watching helplessly as she dragged Eddie, bruised and crying, into her car and drove him out of Richie’s life that Summer.

Richie knows he shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but he’s suddenly hit by such a strong wave of resentment for Sonia Kaspbrak that it’s almost nauseating.

“Sorry.” Richie offers after a moment. “That, uh. That must’ve been hard on you.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Eddie mutters, hugging the pillow to his chest and looking very small. Richie wonders if he’s somehow remembering the same thing. “Can we not talk about her?”

“Okay.” Richie says, with a pang of guilt. He knows, instinctively, that it’s not good when Eddie goes quiet like this, instead of getting loud and angry, because it means that Richie’s actually upset him. “Hey, I just had an idea.”

Eddie looks up distrustfully. “Does it involve getting the fuck out of here?”

“Actually, yeah.” Richie knocks Eddie’s shoulder with his own. It’s a small movement – they’re already pretty much pressed together. “You should come to Reno with me.”

Eddie makes a face. “Like as a groupie?”

“No, not as a groupie, Eddie, Jesus Christ, you’d be the worst groupie ever-”

“You don’t know me!”

“Like shit I don’t.” Richie puts on a voice that sounds nothing like Eddie. “It’s nine, Richie, time for bed. No, Richie, you can’t have a smoke machine, it’s a health and safety hazard, and – oh my god, is that coke? Do you know people cut coke with rat feces these days-”

Eddie scoffs. “Your manager deserves a raise.”

Richie thinks of his manager. Short, dark-haired, a little neurotic. Married. Total Eddie-type.

“My manager is back in Chicago.” Richie says, disturbed by the idea that he’s been subconsciously curating people to fill Eddie-sized voids in his life. “You’d probably do a good job filling in for him.”

“Sounds like a nightmare.” Eddie says. He hugs the pillow tighter, seeming distracted. “I don’t want to listen to your shitty stand up every night.”

“Whatever, man.” Richie shrugs. He kind of hates his own stand-up too. “Offer’s still on the table.”

“I’d take Reno over this shithole though.” Eddie says, after a moment. He sounds like he means it. “Anywhere is better than Derry.”

Richie stretches his arms up, yawning. “Oh, baby, I’ll show you Reno.”

Eddie doesn’t answer, but when Richie steals a side-long glance at him, he thinks there’s a smile resting in the corners of his drawn lips. It’s enough to stop Richie’s natural instincts to be an asshole and bring up how Eddie hasn’t mentioned his wife once since they got back to the townhouse.

He wants to live in this fantasy world where they can just pick up and drive to Reno and not think about any fucking clowns for a little while longer too.

Richie doesn’t quite feel relaxed in Eddie’s presence, his heart beating a little too fast to be calm, but a companionable silence falls over them all the same. He dares to stretch again and drop his right arm across the headboard, behind the pillows that are propping Eddie upright, getting comfortable. Eddie doesn’t fuss about it, even though it kind of looks like Richie’s about to make a move on him.

Eddie readjusts himself too, putting the pillow behind his back again and pushing himself upright with his feet. Unlike Richie, he took his shoes off when he entered the room. He’s wearing white socks, pristine and unmarked in a way that Richie didn’t think was scientifically possible.

Looking at Eddie’s feet fills Richie’s chest with a strange sense of relief, and it’s overwhelming to think about how Eddie could have been hurt by one of the fortune cookie creatures back in the restaurant, the idea that Eddie could be doing anything other than shifting his feet on Richie’s bedsheets suddenly too much for him to bear.

“Hey, Eddie-”

Richie’s about to say something to break the silence, probably make fun of the size of Eddie’s feet to cover up his sudden urge to do something weird, like hold them in his hands, when Eddie’s hand falls on his chest.

Richie’s brain short-circuits again. “E-Eddie-?”

Eddie shushes him, and Richie realizes that his dark eyes are looking past him, focused on the bedroom door.

Richie’s ears prick and he hears movement in the house, soft footfalls on the staircase.

“Bev.” Eddie mouths.

Richie whips around to face the door too, glad Eddie won’t catch the color rushing to his cheeks. Stupid.

Richie can feel Eddie holding his breath when they hear a second set of footsteps follow in her wake. The floorboards outside of Richie’s bedroom creak and he strains to listen for voices, any tell-tale sign of the secret identity, but nobody makes a sound. The footsteps grow distant, fading out.

Bev’s room is at the opposite end of the corridor from Richie’s.

They release a sigh in unison. Richie hadn’t realized how close their faces were until he feels Eddie’s breath on his cheek, Eddie’s body tucked into Richie’s side as he watched the door.

Somehow, the smell of Eddie’s whiskey-breath doesn’t bother him.

“So who do you think Bev picked?” Eddie whispers, not sitting back like Richie expects him to when he turns to face him. In fact, Eddie looks like this is just about the most thrilling thing that’s ever happened to him. Richie thinks he sees a flash of Eddie’s younger self for a second, wide-eyed and freckle-nosed, leaning into Richie’s side as they conspired about something or other. “Bill or Ben?”

Richie snorts, uncomfortably aware of Eddie’s hand still on his chest. “I don’t know. I hope it’s Ben.”

“Why?”

_Because somebody should have a shot at making it with his childhood crush before we all die horribly_, Richie thinks. “Because the man’s an Adonis _and_ he’s like a fucking CEO, Eddie, it’s not rocket science.”

“Bill’s successful.”

Richie feels a stab of annoyance at Eddie defending Bill, even though he can pinpoint why. “Maybe they’ll all have a threesome.”

Eddie considers this. “And leave Mikey out?”

“Hey, Mike and Bill disappeared together for a long-ass time.” Richie muses, a little charmed by Eddie’s investment in this, even if he doesn’t really give a shit. “Plot twist. Maybe _they_ were the ones bumping uglies when we were younger?”

“Woah.” Eddie’s eyes blow even bigger, and Richie feels a prickle of disappointment when he removes his hand from his chest, touching his fingers to his temple like he thinks he’s Professor X, then. “Nah. No way. That was not a thing. It was definitely Bill and Bev.”

“They kissed in the school play.” Richie says, before he even knows he’s saying it. Eddie looks at him like he’s a genius and he feels his cheeks heating up. “Right?”

“Yeah! But, holy shit, wait a minute-” Eddie’s face lights up and for a moment Richie hopes he’s going to grab onto his shirt again in excitement, then seems to catch himself, grabbing a fistful of bedsheet instead. “Ben kissed Bev, didn’t he?”

Something unlocks in Richie’s memory. “Wait, who wrote her that gay-ass little poem?”

Eddie blinks, confused. “What poem?”

“Never mind. Shit. I drank too much.” Richie’s head hurts but he doesn’t think it’s from the alcohol. He scrubs at his eyes behind his glasses, pulling away from Eddie a little. “I feel like a fucking amnesia patient over here.”

Eddie murmurs his agreement, settling back against the pillows and looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully.

“What about us?”

Richie freezes. “What about us?”

“Do you think we ever-” Eddie trails off, eyes flicking back to meet his nervously. “Y’know.”

“Are you – are you serious, Eddie?”

Eddie rolls onto his other side like Richie just punched him, moaning and covering his face. “Shut up. Pretend I didn’t say anything.”

“What?” Richie prods, feeling a little light-headed. Something dormant is waking up inside of him, clawing at the recesses of his mind. “You think we, like, kissed or something?”

“I don’t know, it just came out!” Eddie shouts into his hands. “Jesus Christ. Give me the whiskey.”

“But you’re married.” Richie says slowly, bitterly, reaching for the bottle. “To a woman.”

Eddie makes a noise that sounds both like he’s agreeing and like he’s in a great deal of pain. He twists back and swallows down a mouthful of whiskey, making a face. “Yeah. I know.”

“And I-” Richie swallows. “I think I’d remember kissing you, dude.”

“So we probably didn’t.” Eddie says quickly.

“Yeah.” Richie nods. “That’d be weird.”

“Super weird.” Eddie agrees.

Neither of them speak for a long moment. Richie’s arm feels numb behind Eddie’s pillows but he doesn’t dare move a muscle. Eddie is as stiff as a board beside him.

_”Don’t touch the other boys, Richie.”_

“There’s no way I dated a guy when I was a teenager.” Richie blurts out, cold with panic. “That would mean-”

_That would mean I’ve been seeking out meaningless hook-ups and lying to myself that I’ve never been capable of committing to something more._

“I’m not saying we dated!” Eddie hisses, peering nervously to the door, then into Richie’s eyes. He looks panicky in a way that Richie feels. “But- but, shit, Richie, you feel it too, don’t you?”

Richie might actually throw up again. “Feel what?”

“I don’t know!” Eddie sounds terrified. “Shit. _Something_. Me and you.”

“I mean-” Richie really wants to make a joke, but his mind is going blank, just like it did during his last routine, when he tried to go on stage after Mike’s phone call. He clears his throat. “I- I asked Mike about it. About us. Back at the restaurant.”

“You did?” Eddie’s shoulders drop a fraction, but he’s still tense, wound-up tight. “What, um, what did he say?”

“He didn’t.” Richie says, frustrated all over again. “He didn’t tell me anything.”

“What?” Eddie looks homicidal. “What the fuck is his problem?”

“I know, right?” Richie vents, before shaking his head. “I guess he had more pressing things to tell us.”

Eddie closes his eyes. For one horrifying second, Richie thinks he’s about to cry. Then he pushes the heels of his palms into his eyes and makes a noise of frustration.

“I feel like I’m _so_ close to remembering.” Eddie says, dropping his hands into his lap and giving Richie a pleading look. “But every time I think the memories are about to come back, it’s like something-”

“Blocks them.” Richie finishes, a pit in his stomach. “Yeah. I feel it too.”

“This is bullshit.” Eddie tells the ceiling. His head is tipped back and Richie has an insane urge to curl his hand around his shoulder, squeeze him into his side. Like it’s something he’s already done countless times before. “I feel like I’m going nuts.”

“Eddie, c’mon.” Richie tries to force a smile onto his face. “Who cares if we – what, kissed? – once when we were kids.” He doesn’t know why his heart is suddenly hammering in his chest. “You don’t date guys.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything.

“Eddie?”

“Don’t freak out-”

And.

Okay.

Richie doesn’t remember much about anything, but he’s _pretty_ damn sure this is the first time Eddie has had to say those words to him, and not the other way around.

“Did you date a guy, Eddie?” Richie asks, bowled over by the rush of jealousy that floods his chest when Eddie gives a tiny nod of affirmation. “What the - _when_?”

“In college.” Eddie moans, eyes widening like he can’t understand what’s possessing him to admit this. Richie can relate - he can hardly believe that this is a real conversation they’re having either. “Why are you looking at me like that, asshole? Everyone experiments in college!”

“I didn’t fucking date a dude!”

“It was one time, okay!” Eddie says, clearly stressed. Richie wonders if he’s ever told anyone about this before. “Jesus. Calm down.”

Richie is too worked up to point out the irony of Eddie Kaspbrak telling _him_ to calm down. Richie is seized by an urgent need to know everything about this man - his height, his weight, his hair color and visual acuity.

“What was he – what was it like?”

“I didn’t _do_ anything with him.” Eddie says sharply, not able to meet his eyes. “Don’t be a fucking perv-”

“That’s literally not what I asked you, Eddie, but okay-”

“He was in my psych class-”

“You took a _psyche_ class?”

“Shut up.” Eddie snaps, angry color rising to his cheeks. “We dated for a few months, I wouldn’t put out at some dumb college party, or the next one after that, he called me frigid and that was that.”

Eddie does look at him then, defiant, like he’s challenging Richie to mock him. He feels lost, like Eddie isn’t _his_ Eddie all of a sudden, the one who had slotted back into his life so easily that it almost felt like they’d never been apart.

The twenty-seven years that have separated them now feels like a whole lifetime Richie has missed out on.

“You mean you didn’t-” For once in his life, Richie can’t bring himself to swear. He makes a crude motion with his hands, curling his thumb and forefinger on his right hand together and poking his other forefinger through it. “Do it?”

“No!” Eddie says, turning redder, then goes quiet, speaking more to himself. “I couldn’t. The idea of being - intimate like that, with him, it - it freaked me out too much”

Richie thinks it’s pretty fucked up that he feels relieved about this information.

“Wait.” Eddie says slowly, snapping Richie’s attention back to him. “What did _you_ do in college?”

“Experimented.” Richie says, giving a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s college.”

“Oh.” Eddie says. Richie can’t tell if he’s disappointed or just judgmental about this revelation. “So – so you mean you _do_-”

“Fuck guys?” Richie says, trying to sound unaffected. “Yeah.”

“What about your stand-up?” Eddie asks, almost accusatory. There’s a strange emotion in his voice that Richie can’t quite place, but there’s a part of him that hopes that it’s jealousy. “You’re always making those dumb girlfriend jokes-”

Richie tries to suppress the grin threatening to form on his lips. He can’t help but feel gratified at the idea of Eddie watching his stand-up and feeling a twinge of annoyance every time Richie made a joke about his girlfriend, even if he didn’t even understand why.

“I already told you I don’t write my own material.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. Fucking hack.” Eddie nods, murmuring the last part as an after-thought. He bites his lip. “So _you’ve_ never actually-”

“I don’t date.”

“Huh.” Eddie’s dark eyes are searching into his in a way that makes Richie’s skin itch, sweat breaking out on his palms. “That’s kinda sad.”

“Yeah, how’s marriage working out for you?”

It’s a low-blow. Eddie doesn’t explode like Richie expects him to.

“I don’t _know_, man.” He sighs, curling in on himself and looking smaller than he is again, and rather like he’d fit very well in the crook Richie’s arm. “I don’t like being alone.”

Richie is trying to think of a way to respond to that, preferably without his own abandonment issues resurfacing, when something disturbing occurs to him.

“Dude. Why don’t I remember where you went to college?”

Eddie frowns. “I don’t remember where you went either, Rich”

“Shit. Why don’t I remember _anything_ about you after-” Richie can’t bring himself to say it. “Did we just stop being friends after that Summer?”

“I don’t think so.” Eddie says, fingers hovering over his own chest and looking upset at the suggestion. “I think- I think we just forgot each other.”

Richie’s heart clenches. He feels like he’s mourning the loss of something he didn’t even know he had.

“Well, that’s fucking depressing.” Is all he can say. “All this chit-chat and I still don’t remember shit.” Then, to do something productive. “Pass the whiskey.”

Richie downs the last of the whiskey, and Eddie fidgets, crossing his feet over one way, then the other. Richie sets the bottle down and his eyes focus on the strip of skin above Eddie’s ankle, visible from where his jeans have slightly ridden up.

He feels an inexplicable surge of affection rise up in his chest. Eddie hasn’t noticed where he’s staring, looking lost in his own thoughts as he picks at his fingernails.

“Hey, hey, Eddie, do you remember-” Richie doesn’t know why he’s saying this but the words are falling out anyway. “Remember how you always wore those tiny fucking shorts-?”

Eddie actually kicks him, the heel of white-socked foot landing on Richie’s calf. “Shut it, creep, I’m trying to think!”

“You know, for how over-protective your Mom was, I can’t believe she really let you out of the house like that-”

“We all wore shorts!”

“Not true-” Richie says. “Bill always wore those ugly fucking jorts.”

Eddie gives him a disbelieving look, murder in his eyes, then the corners of his lips tremble and laughter bubbles out of his mouth. It might be the best goddamn sound Richie’s ever heard.

“Oh my _god_, he did.” Eddie breathes, sounding delighted. “Jeez. Why the hell did we all look up to a guy wearing _jorts_?”

“Fuck knows.” Richie says, his own smile slipping. “Why’s that all I’m remembering about Summer?”

“Bill’s jorts?”

“No.” Richie takes his glasses off and wipes a hand down his face. “Your fucking legs.”

Eddie goes still beside him, and Richie feels kind of sick again, though he’s not sure if it’s just the whisky unsettling his stomach or his own guilty conscience.

“I remember-” Eddie begins after a moment, waiting until Richie has put his glasses back on before he shoots him a deeply distrustful look. “Why do I remember you holding my ankle-?”

Richie can _sense_ them both figuring it out at the exact same time.

“The clubhouse!”

“The hammock!”

“Give me that.” Richie decides, holding his hand out and indicating with his fingers impatiently when Eddie hesitates. “C’mon, before we forget.”

“My _ankle_?”

“Yeah.” Richie says. “Mike said some mumbo-jumbo about triggering our own memories. So be a team-player and give me my emotional support ankle, Eddie.”

“You are seriously un-fucking-believable.”

Eddie huffs, pink-cheeked, but he brings his leg up to his chest and rolls up the hem of his jeans anyway. His dark eyebrows knit together and he slowly shifts his body to the side to give Richie more room, tentatively extending his ankle for him to take.

“I swear to God, Rich, you say anything weird about this position and I _will_ kick you in the fucking face.”

Richie is already reaching for him. Eddie makes an odd squeaking sound when Richie’s fingers meet his bare skin, clasping his ankle lightly.

Eddie holds his breath as he waits for Richie to react.

He feels kind of stupid, and the angle is all wrong, but there’s also something so unmistakably familiar about what he’s doing, so inherently comforting, that Richie feels like he’s slipping back into an old habit. He has flashes of being pressed up against Eddie in a hammock and reaching out to hold his ankle as naturally as he would reach for his comic book, as if it was the final piece of a ritual he needed to obtain. He suddenly feels like he’s been seeking out this ankle his entire life, like he thinks he’s the fucking prince out of Cinderella carrying around a glass slipper, ignoring the ankles of every other person in the world because he knows in his heart that only Eddie’s ankle could ever fit in his hand so perfectly.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Richie says with certainty, his mouth going dry. He rubs his thumb over Eddie’s skin in soft circles before he fully realizes that he’s doing it, like unconscious muscle memory. “Not that I’m surprised.”

“What?” Eddie asks nervously. His toes curl. “What’s what you thought?”

“That you’d still have same fucking baby bird ankles, Eddie, how do you even walk on these-?”

Eddie kicks out of his hold roughly and Richie mourns the loss of contact, half-regretting the joke.

“Great. That was a pointless fucking exercise.” Eddie says haughtily, looking embarrassed, but Richie can’t help but grin at how he didn’t actually make good on his threat to kick him in the face. “Thanks for wasting my time-”

“You didn’t remember?”

Eddie gives him a skeptical look, bringing his leg up to his chest and hugging it, settling his chin on his knee. “Remember what?”

Richie feels a little put-out, because Eddie isn’t giving any indication that he ever romanticized Richie’s love for his ankle in the same way. “Dude, I used to hold your leg and massage it in a hammock and shit, you’re seriously not getting how gay that was?”

“Okay. Yeah. Obviously it was super fucking gay!” Eddie says, at a loss. “But, like, did we do that when we were just friends or-” His voice gets smaller. “Because we weren’t just friends?”

Richie tries to think. He can’t figure out how to place his attachment to Eddie’s ankle on a timeline, because it feels like it’s something that’s always been there, the same way he’s always poured ranch dip on his pizza. And it’s getting harder to draw any conclusions about their relationship, because Richie’s starting to realize that doesn’t actually remember a time when Eddie ever felt like he was _just_ his friend, the way all the others were. It feels like Eddie’s always held a different place in his heart, unnamed but reserved just for him.

“I don’t know.” Richie admits. “What do you think?”

Eddie opens his mouth, then pauses, closing it again, then mumbles, “I don’t like it when people touch me.”

This isn’t exactly news, but Richie still takes it as a personal slight. “Sorry?”

“No. Shut up for a second. That’s not what I’m saying.” Eddie says, worrying his bottom lip again. “You’ve been touching me - and I’ve been touching _you_ \- all night and it-” His voice drops, as if he’s afraid someone is actually going to hear them. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“Oh.” Richie says, dumbly.

“And I’m remembering that I don't think it ever bothered me.” Eddie keeps going, even though he looks absolutely petrified, still hugging his leg in a way that's triggering Richie's protective instincts. “Not when it was you, Richie.”

Richie wants to make some kind of innuendo, because everything just got very serious and real very fast, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. Another, baser part of him wants to touch Eddie everywhere, now that he apparently has permission. But Richie doesn’t do either of those things, because something about Eddie’s confession has him shaken to his fucking core.

“Say something, fucknugget!” Eddie shouts, looking as insecure as Richie feels.

Richie can feel his pulse racing, because he’s still not sure if Eddie is thinking what he’s thinking, and he feels like any minute action could be the thing that tips Eddie into panic mode, scaring him off of Richie’s bed and out of his room. The idea of Eddie rejecting him is suddenly crippling.

“Richie, I’m being so fucking serious right now, I open up to you and you’re choosing _now_ to be quiet for once in your life? Are you fucking kidding me with this shit-”

“Hey, I’m thinking we should take you up on your suggestion earlier, back when we were arm wrestling.” Richie says, before Eddie can start full-on hyperventilating. “We can keep our shirts on, though.”

“You mean you want to-” Eddie presses his lips together, like he’s testing the word in his mouth. “You think we should kiss?”

“It might jog our memories or something, right?” Richie says, then huffs a laugh to mask how scared and vulnerable he feels, because Eddie looks shell-shocked by the suggestion, his thumb stroking his wedding ring. “We could do it for, like, science or some shit. ”

For a moment, Richie thinks he’s fucked it. Eddie’s staring at the door, like he’s honed in on his escape route and is just trying to gather the courage to bolt, when he glances back to Richie and his whole body seems to deflate, a wild curiosity in his eyes.

He nods, just once, letting go of his leg and carefully maneuvering himself towards Richie again, onto his knees, looking so skittish that Richie almost thinks Eddie is going to panic and kiss him there and then.

“You have to brush your teeth first.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“No. And it’s _not_ that big of a deal to ask.” Eddie says defensively, clearly projecting from an old argument. “You know the human mouth is home to over one-hundred-”

“One-hundred species of bacteria, I know.” Richie finishes, then pauses. He has it again, that _déjà vu_ feeling, and by the look on Eddie’s face, he knows he’s been hit by it too.

“Well.” Eddie looks flustered, waving an arm at him. “Fucking go and do it then.”

“Jesus, fine!”

Richie stands, then his world swims for moment, almost knocked back onto the bed by how unsteady he is on his feet.

“I told you I could handle my drink better than you.” Eddie says, and Richie looks over his shoulder to see Eddie is standing too.

“Where are you going?”

Eddie looks at him like he’s a dumbass, but out of the corner of his eye, Richie can see his hands are trembling. “To brush my teeth.”

“Oh. Okay.” Richie says stiltedly. His nerves make him want to laugh, but he can already tell it will set Eddie off if he thinks he’s making fun of him. “See you in a, uh, minute then.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and leaves, closing the door very quietly, like he thinks he’ll wake the entire townhouse if they hear it click shut.

“Fuck.”

Richie grabs onto the sink once he’s in his bathroom, his legs shaking too violently to support his weight.

“I’ve lost my fucking mind.” He mutters as he takes out his toothbrush and uncaps the miniature complimentary toothpaste, the strong smell of spearmint making his stomach queasy. “Eddie fucking Kaspbrak. What the fuck.”

He scrubs at his teeth violently, sticking his tongue out and scraping the brush along that too. He spits, ducking his face under the tab to gulp a mouthful of water.

When he resurfaces to look at his face in the mirror, Richie thinks he sees a flash of his younger self, his eyes huge and scared behind his glasses.

“Get your shit together, Tozier.” He tells his reflection, but his face doesn’t look any less anxious.

He spies his bottle of axe and pauses, before grabbing it. He sprays some of it directly onto his hand and dabs it along his neck and jawline. He wonders if Eddie is going to freak out when he feels his stubble. He didn’t shave last night, and it’s grown in heavily, itchy on his cheeks.

He wonders, perversely, if Eddie might like it.

His dick twitches at the thought and Richie groans, removing his glasses to pat some water under his eyes.

This is stupid. Richie feels like he’s thirteen again and it’s his first time kissing someone.

His stomach does an alarming somersault and he clutches the sink again. Who _was_ his first kiss?

He tries to rack his brains but he feels like he’s walking through a corridor blindfolded, his hands reaching out to find a wall that isn’t there, or like he’s climbing a staircase, his foot falling through an invisible step right before he reaches the top.

Richie hears the door open, then close again gently, and knows Eddie’s back. He has to steel himself to return to his bedroom - it’s been a long time since he suffered from stage fright.

Eddie is sitting on his bed when he re-enters and a toiletry bag is now sitting on the bedside table. He’s changed into a plain white shirt and Richie feels like he already has the phantom feeling of the soft material under his hands, somehow knows just by sight that it’s pure cotton, because Eddie insists his skin is too sensitive for cheap synthetic shit.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Eddie says, stiffly, looking at Richie like he thinks he’s a rabid animal about to attack him.

“So.” Richie pats the sides of his thighs. “How do you wanna do this?”

They end up kneeling across from one another on the bed, like they’re about to have a fucking séance. Richie supposes they are trying to recall ghosts of some sort.

“Dude, did you seriously put more axe on?” Eddie asks, nose wrinkling.

“Smell is meant to be the sense closest linked to memory.” Richie says, tapping his temple. “That and, uh. Taste.”

“Right.” Eddie says. He runs his tongue over his bottom lip. “Wait, fuck, I need to do one thing, just wait.”

Richie frowns as Eddie reaches for his toiletry bag and takes out his chapstick, removing the lid and applying it to his lips delicately, as that’s a normal and not insane thing to be doing right now.

Eddie glares at him, dropping the chap stick back in the bag and returning it to the table. “What?”

“Nothing, sorry, don’t mind me, I’ll just wait here all night whilst you put your make-up on.”

“Fuck you, okay, it’s humid, and my lips get chapped-”

“Sure you’re not just, like, addicted to the honey?”

Something changes in Eddie’s face. “How do you know that?”

“Know what?”

“The chap stick flavor.” Eddie demands, his lips distractingly shiny. “How do you know it?”

“Because-” Something in Richie’s mind clicks. “You always wore that honey chap stick, Eds.”

Eddie’s voice goes very thin. “Yeah, but how do you _know_ that?”

Richie wants to lie and say he just read the label. Or that it’s an old joke he remembers from when they were kids. But he knows the truth, and he thinks Eddie does too. He can almost taste the honey on his own lips.

“Because I think we’ve done this before, dude”

“Fuck.” Eddie whispers, eyes squeezing shut.

“Christ.” Richie says, throat tightening. “We really are creatures of habit, huh?” He reaches out to touch a short lock of Eddie’s hair that’s fallen out of place, faintly surprised when Eddie doesn’t flinch away. “Same conditioner, same body spray, same fucking chap stick – do you think we have, like, a problem or something?”

Eddie laughs hoarsely, giving a helpless shrug.

“Yeah, I think we got a lot of fucking problems, Rich.”

“Should we just grow a pair and do it?” Richie asks, feeling like he’s about to climb down the well in the Neibolt house again, knowing there’s no way of turning back. “Ready to pucker up?”

“Yeah.” Eddie blinks a few times, like he can’t quite believe he’s saying it. “Fuck. Yeah. Just do it, Rich.”

Richie does it. He leans in, connecting their lips. Eddie presses back, softly, almost hopefully.

And there’s nothing.

No spark.

“Oh.” Eddie sits back, touching his own lips.

Richie’s not sure know what he was expecting, but something inside of him still feels crushed.

“That bad, huh?”

He startles when Eddie grabs his hand, his eyes huge.

“What did you just say?”

And then, in an instant, he remembers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to hmu on tumblr or discord if you wanna chat, I have no fandom friends!!: https://thotgreeves.tumblr.com


	2. Chapter 2

**Fall, 1990 - The Clubhouse**

“It’s my turn to lead.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You’ve been leading for like five minutes and you’ve stepped on my feet, like, a gazillion times, I want to have a turn before you break all of my goddamn toes-”

“Oh, I’ll break your toes-”

“Quit it, Richie!”

Neither of them really know what they’re doing, but Eddie is insisting on being very fussy and precise about the whole thing anyway, criticizing Richie’s footwork at every turn. Admittedly, he is pretty bad, but it’s hard to concentrate when Eddie is pressed so close to his chest that Richie can count every freckle sprinkled over his nose bridge.

“Just let me try the dip one more time.” Richie whines, two-stepping with Eddie in a circle.

“Give up on the dip already!”

There’s no way Richie is giving up on the dip. He almost got it last time.

“One more!”

“Ugh, fine, but I swear to God-” Eddie stops, huffs, blows a stray lock of hair from where it keeps falling into his face, knocked out of its usual neat style from when Richie spun him around. “If you drop me in the dirt, I will kick your ass, Rich, I’m serious-”

Richie grips his hand tighter, sliding his palm from Eddie’s waist to the middle of his back. “Oh, really, you’ll kick my ass, Eddie?”

“Yeah, so don’t fucking try me.” Eddie spits, moving his fingers from Richie’s bicep to clutch the back of his neck. “Okay but, like, don’t lean forward this time because you need to support my weight-”

They’re still two-stepping. “Wow, you sound exactly your Mom right now-”

“Fuck you!”

“Sorry.” Richie says, only because Eddie has become extremely conscious of his weight lately, adamant that his Mom used to be slim too until she hit fourteen. “Just stick your leg out and trust me, okay?” He softens. “I’ve got you.”

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut. “Okay-”

Richie dips him, and Eddie tenses, bracing himself, his fingers tightening around his neck like he’s determined to take Richie down with him.

Only they don’t fall.

“Oh.” Eddie says, eyes opening in surprise.

“Told you.” Richie breathes, grinning. It’s not really a dip, because Eddie isn’t really bent back that far, less of a dip and more of a gentle lowering, but Richie’s feeling pretty smug about it anyway. Eddie had seized up and ruined the past two attempts by panicking before he could do it properly, and it fills Richie with a strange sense of pride to know that he won Eddie’s trust this time around. “Did I take your breath away, Eddie?”

Edde’s nose crinkles primly. “Yeah, you gagged me with your shitty fucking body spray.” The way Eddie’s fingers relax around his neck makes Richie’s skin tingle. “You better not wear it to homecoming, you’ll stink out the whole gymnasium.”

Richie still has Eddie in hold and the only thing he can smell is the soft scent of peaches in his hair. “Hmm. That’s funny, I’m not wearing any body spray.” He grins. “Oh. Those must be my natural pheromones you’re smelling. Pretty manly, huh?”

“Yeah. Super manly. You better hope your date has a blocked nose.” Eddie mutters, his big brown eyes staring up at Richie in a vaguely accusatory manner. “Is this the part where you kiss her?”

Richie blinks. He’s not prepared to be thinking about kissing whilst he has Eddie in this position, their lips only a few inches apart.

“Huh?”

“Is this when you’re planning to kiss her?” Eddie repeats, frowning when Richie doesn’t say anything. “That’s why you wanted to do the dip, right?”

“Uh.” Richie’s mind is completely blank, because he kind of forgot the entire reason they were here in the first place up until now, distracted by how much he liked the feeling of Eddie in his arms. “I kinda just wanted to learn how do a dip.”

“Okay.” Eddie scoffs like he doesn’t believe him, pushing back against his hand. “Can you let me up already?”

Richie lifts him back up reluctantly and Eddie lets go of his hand once he rights himself. There’s a split-second where Richie just stands there, tongue-tied and holding him, whilst Eddie stares up into his eyes like he’s about to tell him something, before Eddie shakes his head and pulls away like he’s decided against it.

“Hey. Where you goin’?” Richie asks, trying not to sound over-keen when Eddie walks over to the hammock and sits down heavily in it like it’s a giant swing. “It’s your turn to lead.”

“I hate dancing.” Eddie says, which kind of stings, because Richie had thought Eddie had been kind of enjoying himself too. He rocks himself in the hammock, swaying slightly. “It’s stupid.”

“I guess.” Richie says, shrugging to mask his disappointment. He blinks back a flash of Bowers’ cousin in the arcade, the way his face turned from confusion to disgust when Richie had asked him to play again. He doesn’t think Eddie would ever do that to him, but he’d sooner douse himself in battery acid than find out. “I think it’s pretty stupid too. Blame Stan.”

Eddie smiles, but he looks like he means it when he says. “Yeah, this is all Stan’s fault.”

Homecoming is next week, and Richie is pretty pissed off about it.

The losers had historically shunned school dances (by choice, damn it) but Stan had been the first to break ranks this year, informing them nervously that he had been asked to homecoming by a girl in his math class. Bill, who’s air of Dickensian melancholy had proven popular with the girls in his drama class, had been the next traitor, turning down a few offers before agreeing to go with a pretty red-haired girl who had been cast in the school play with him. Richie didn’t think Bill seemed too happy about it, but Ben had certainly looked relieved by the news.

Richie had assumed he’d be staying home and watching movies with Eddie, Mike and Ben, because he had zero interest in standing around a punch bowl and making awkward small-talk with the lame kids in their year, but Ben had thrown a wrench in the works by announcing Bev had agreed to come back to visit and go as his date.

(“L-Like as a date or a pl-plus one?” Bill had asked at the lunch table, looking uncharacteristically intense.

“Um.” Ben had floundered. “I think she just wants to see everyone.”

“Wow.” Richie had mouthed at Eddie across the table, who grinned, laughing silently.

“Awkward.” Eddie mouthed back.)

After that, Stan had asked his date if she’d mind signing Mike in as her plus one, so he wouldn’t be left out, and she’d agreed. Which was all fine and dandy, except nobody had asked Richie and Eddie if they actually wanted to go, and Richie didn’t even need to ask Eddie to know that he was miserable about the whole thing, still prone to acting shy and introverted when surrounded by groups of people, instead of the loud-mouthed little gremlin Richie knows and loves.

Richie would have worked-up the courage to ask Eddie to stay home with him. He _would_ have. That was totally his plan.

Until Greta Keene had cornered Richie by his locker and asked if he would be her date to homecoming.

And sure, Richie probably shouldn’t have responded by wheeze-laughing in her face. It wasn’t his finest hour. But she didn’t have to turn around and call him a “_fucking fag_” loud enough for everyone in the corridor to turn around and look.

Richie had panicked, walked to his history class and immediately asked the girl sitting next to him if she’d be his date to homecoming. She had said yes, and then followed up by asking if Eddie had a date yet (since apparently everybody in school knew they came as a package deal) because her best friend didn’t have anybody to go with, and wouldn’t it be great if they could all go as a double date?

He doesn’t think Eddie has fully forgiven him for it yet.

Richie wants to apologize, because he hates it when Eddie’s sulking with him, but then Eddie might ask him why he did it, and it’s not like Richie can just explain himself.

_Sorry I got us both dates to homecoming without asking you first, I only did it because someone called me a faggot again and I don’t want to have to go to this shitty dance if you’re not there, and I know I’ve been pretending to be into this girl, but one time I wrote both of our initials on the kissing bridge and I’m worried you’ll hate me if you ever find out._

Yeah.

There’s a lot of things that don’t scare Richie anymore, not after last Summer, but losing Eddie is pretty much the one thing that keeps him up at night.

“Who’d have thought Stan would be the one trying to get laid?” Richie tries to joke, sitting next to Eddie in the hammock. His feet plant firmly on the ground whilst Eddie’s tiptoes graze the dirt. “You should stick a condom or two in your fanny pack for him.”

“Gross!”

Richie snorts and pretends to reach over to try to unzip the ever-present fanny pack around Eddie’s waist, grinning when Eddie smacks his hand away. “Hey, better stock up. You might get lucky too.”

“Don’t joke about that.” Eddie makes a face. “I don’t even want to dance with her, dude.”

“Why not?” Richie asks, heart pounding stupidly. “She’s kinda cute.”

Eddie turns to him very seriously. “Have you seen her fingernails?”

Oh. _Of course_ this is what Eddie’s worried about. “No?”

“She has so much dirt under her nail beds, Rich, like I don’t even think she cleans them.”

Richie can’t remember the last time he cleaned his nails, but Eddie hadn’t made a fuss about holding his hand to dance.

“You have hand sanitizer, don't you?”

Eddie doesn’t look like he’s heard him, picking at his own nails in an agitated fashion. “Do you think she’ll try to kiss me?”

The idea of Eddie kissing someone else cuts through Richie like ice. “How should I know?”

“Did you know the human mouth can host up to two hundred species of bacteria?” Eddie continues anxiously, not waiting for him to answer. “_Species_, Richie, and - and- I think she bites her nails too because they look kind raggedy?” Richie knows he’s fully down the rabbit whole now. “Which means she’s transferring all of those gross nail germs into her mouth, and if she kisses me, then it’ll go into _my_ mouth-”

“Then you’ll definitely get strep.”

Eddie covers his mouth. “Oh my god, I’ll get strep.”

“Jesus, Eddie. You don’t have to kiss her.” Richie says, partly because he’s jealous and partly because Eddie looks genuinely ill at the prospect. He elbows him, lightly. “Don’t listen to the media. You don’t have to put out on the first date.”

Eddie doesn’t seem convinced. “Maybe I’ll get sick and won’t be able to go.” He mumbles, looking more optimistic than he’s sounded about anything else homecoming-related. “I’m pretty sure my Mom thinks I’m lying about going anyway.”

“If you got sick, I’d stay home with you.” Richie says, too quickly. “Out of solidarity, you know?”

Eddie perks up. “Yeah?”

“Sure. Bev’s staying the night, we could just see her in the morning.” Richie says casually, like he hasn’t thought about this exact scenario already. “I wouldn’t leave you on your own.”

Eddie’s smile falls. “What about your date?” He looks down when Richie stares back blankly, mistaking Richie’s silence for second-thoughts. “It’s okay. Forget it. You shouldn’t have to miss out on homecoming just for me.”

Richie could _scream_, because he kind of just wants to shake Eddie and tell him he’d choose him over anything, ever, especially a shitty homecoming dance.

“I don’t care about my fucking date, Eddie.”

“You don’t?” Eddie sounds confused, then annoyed, because of course he has to be difficult about Richie’s nice gesture. “Then why’d you ask her to homecoming?”

Richie hesitates. He walked into that one.

“I thought I needed a date.” Richie shrugs, staring at his feet, which is about as honest as he can get. “And she was there.”

“So you –” He can practically hear the gears whirring in Eddie’s brain. “So you’re not actually into her?”

Fear curls in Richie’s stomach. “Nah, she’s-” He licks his lips, choosing his words carefully. “She’s more of a _pl-plus_ one than a date.”

He holds his breath, waiting for Eddie’s reaction.

He almost thinks he’s imagining things when he sees the corners of Eddie’s lips twitch, like he understands the reference, and is trying not to look too pleased about it.

“Okay.” Eddie says, shifting in the hammock to face him, leering at him in a way that lets Richie know he's not off the hook yet. “But why’d you make me come here and do that fucking dip if you don’t care?”

“You were the one who said I can’t dance!”

“Well you can’t!”

“I wanted to learn!” Richie says, blood pounding in his ears, because he can tell Eddie isn’t buying this excuse. Their fingers are dangerously close together on the hammock. “And I - I thought you were mad at me, okay? For getting you a date. I just came up with a dumb excuse to hang out with you again.”

Eddie’s eyes widen and he ducks his head. Richie cringes, because _hey, let’s learn how to slow dance_ sounds like a pretty sketchy excuse to mend their friendship, even though Richie really _was_ nervous about not knowing how to do it.

“I was mad at you.”

Richie’s gut clenches. “Sorry. I should have asked you first.”

“You’d really stay home with me instead of going to the dance?” Eddie asks, still speaking to his feet. “Just because you want to?”

“Yeah.” Richie says, studying Eddie’s profile for any hint of a reaction. His face gives nothing away. “I wouldn’t have any fun if you weren’t there, Eds.”

“I, um, I think I lied before, Richie.”

Richie swallows. He’s bracing himself for it, the moment where something changes in Eddie’s eyes and he flinches away from Richie, seeing him for what he really is.

“About what?”

“About hating dancing.” Eddie whispers, looking up and leaning into Richie instead of away from him, like he’s about to share a secret. “I kind of liked it when you dipped me.”

“Shit, Eddie.” Richie says, fucking terrified. “I liked it too.”

Eddie’s face is close enough for Richie to count his freckles again. The stray lock of hair has come loose too, and Richie’s heart swells at the sight, feeling responsible for it. It’s a little too dark to really tell, but Richie thinks he’s blushing.

“I know what I said about mouths and bacteria and stuff-” Eddie says, eyes straying to Richie’s lips and looking helpless. “But I don’t think I’d mind if they were your germs, Rich.”

“Yeah?” Richie asks, feeling emotional.

Eddie nods, earnest. “Yeah.”

“Eddie.” Richie gives in, almost begging. “Can I-?”

“Yeah.” Eddie says, tilting his face up hopefully. “Jesus. Please, Richie. Do it already.”

Richie moves in, crashing their lips together.

It’s a dry kiss, and the angle from how they’re sitting in the hammock isn’t quite right, and Richie loses confidence when Eddie makes a questioning sound, panic rising when he realizes he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He breaks it, pulling away too quickly, heart racing.

“Oh.” Eddie says, touching his lips and sitting back.

Richie swallows again, staring down at the ground. His cheeks are flaming hot.

“That bad, huh?”

Eddie doesn’t respond at first and Richie can’t bear to face him.

“Yeah, pretty bad.”

Fuck.

This is it. Eddie’s never going to speak to him again.

“Better let me lead this time.”

Richie barely has a chance to process his words before Eddie’s soft hands are on his face and his lips are pressing against his, firm and insistent. Richie’s fear dissolves almost immediately when Eddie tries to deepen the kiss, sweet and clumsy, their teeth knocking slightly, and they giggle into one another’s mouths. Richie feels like he’s about to lose consciousness, because he can’t believe this is happening, that this is real, bacteria and all, because Eddie is so perfect, kissing Richie like he needs him to breathe.

“Eddie.” Richie whines, then catches his lips again, hungrily. “Why do you taste like honey?”

Eddie laughs, surprised, pink-cheeked. “It’s my chap stick.” He pants, pulling Richie down for another kiss. “Mm, Richie-”

“I love your chap stick.” Richie says, with meaning, pushing Eddie’s hair back and cupping the back of his head. “And your hair, it smells like peaches –” He groans when Eddie’s hand curls in the front of his shirt, almost knocking his glasses off when their noses brush. “I fucking love you, Eddie.”

“Fuck. Richie.” Eddie’s voice is tiny, breaking, his mouth open as he pulls back. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I’m serious. I’m so serious I wrote our fucking initials in the kissing bridge.” Richie says, worried he might actually cry. “I wanted to tell you, Eddie, but I thought you’d hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.” Eddie says, hoisting one leg into the hammock and pressing himself closer to Richie, like he’s trying to get into his lap, desperate to be closer to him. “I could kill you though.” He says, breathless. “Talking about fucking girls this whole time, you piece of shit-”

“I’m sorry.” Richie whimpers, deserving that, throwing one leg over the other side of the hammock so he can face Eddie fully, gathering him up in his arms. “I was – shit, Eddie, I was so scared-”

“It’s okay.” Eddie kisses him again, soft and reassuring, and Richie can’t believe this is their first time doing this, because it already feels like something they’ve been doing their whole lives. “I love you too, you fucking asshole.”

Richie almost falls out of the hammock, but Eddie catches him, hands on his thighs. He does cry then, his chest tight and breath hitching.

“You need to stop.” Eddie says, soft fingertips under his glasses, dabbing at Richie’s wet eyes, so practical and fussy and utterly Eddie that it has the opposite effect, making Richie actually sob. “Oh, Richie.” Eddie’s eyes are shiny too and he holds out his arms, wrapping them around Richie’s neck. “Christ. Come here.”

Eddie hugs him, and Richie squeezes back him tightly, feeling silly but also completely safe and taken care of, burying his face in Eddie’s neck as Eddie pats his hair, sniffling.

“I know.” Eddie says, letting out a watery sigh, nuzzling his face. “I know, Rich.”

It takes a long time for Richie to be able speak again, but he doesn’t try to force it, feeling like he and Eddie are suspended in time inside the clubhouse, and homecoming suddenly seems like a very small thing, easily vanquished.

“Hey, Eddie.” Richie says eventually, sitting up slowly and wiping at his eyes, then Eddie’s. He leaves his hands on his face, thumbs pressing into his wet cheeks. “Can I dip you one more time?”

Eddie’s eyes light up. “Now?”

Richie cups Eddie’s head and rolls him back down on the hammock, landing on top of him and rocking them dangerously, grinning when Eddie bites down on his lip and moans into his mouth, legs kicking into the air and falling around his waist.

**Present, 2016.**

“Fuck.” Richie says, sitting back.

“Fuck.” Eddie says, still holding his hand.

Their eyes lock.

“Did you just remember-”

“You. Moaning into my mouth like a little hussy-”

“Hussy? I was fourteen!”

“Shit.” Richie’s head is spinning. “I wrote our initials on the kissing bridge.”

“You did.” Eddie nods, looking thrown. “You cried.”

“So did you!” Richie shouts, feeling like he could weep at any second. “Fuck, Eddie, I-”

Eddie kisses him, and Richie melts like liquid, tasting mint and honey, moving closer to hold him by the waist, fingers curling in the familiar soft cotton of his shirt. Eddie cups his cheeks, thumbs stroking Richie's stubble. Richie kisses back, daring to use his tongue, and Eddie just moans, a little desperately, opening his mouth for him.

Richie remembers, in stages, kissing Eddie aimlessly in his bedroom for hours on end, kissing Eddie in the clubhouse, kissing Eddie in public places where they hoped nobody could see them, giddy and terrified. It feels like relearning a recipe Richie once knew by heart, how he already knows that Eddie will like it when he sucks gently on his bottom lip, his breath hitching in response.

“Shit, Richie.” Eddie gasps and Richie stops. “No, don’t stop. Fuck.”

Richie grins, kissing along Eddie’s throat, his jaw, enjoying how Eddie’s hands have dropped to grip his forearms, his fingers massaging the hair there. Richie kisses like Eddie wants to disappear into him, and for a moment it feels like it’s possible, their lips sliding together so perfectly that Richie feels like he’ll open his eyes and be fourteen again, wrapped in the arms of the boy he loves.

“Eddie.” He whispers, like a prayer, tilting their foreheads together. “Eddie, are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Eddie says, sounding dazed, his breathing a little ragged. “Are you?”

“I’m good. Jesus, I’m good. But how the fuck did I not remember this shit?” Richie asks, frustrated, because he wants to hold onto this feeling and chase the memories that are eluding him still. “This – us - was like a pivotal moment in my - my boyhood, my adolescence – and I couldn’t remember my first kiss. Shit, Eddie, I can’t remember my first-” Richie cuts off, the words dying in his throat.

Eddie seems to be thinking the same thing. He’s still holding Richie’s arms, tight, as if to steady himself. “I don’t- I don’t remember my first time either, Rich”

Richie moans, lifting his head to press a kiss to Eddie’s forehead and leaving his lips there for a moment. “Why’s it not all coming back yet?”

Eddie looks down. “Maybe there’s a reason we repressed it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe something happened-” Eddie says, sounding lost.

“Between us?”

“I don’t know.” Eddie says, sliding his hands from Richie’s arms and onto his own thighs. Richie feels, with a sick twist in his gut, the cool metal of Eddie’s wedding band along his skin. “Goddamnit. Why did we drink so much?”

“What if it’s the alcohol that’s helping us remember?” Richie asks, alarmed. “What if we wake up and we forget this shit again?”

“I don’t think we will.” Eddie says. “If anything, the whiskey’s probably blocking stuff out.”

“Yeah, that’s what I normally use it for.”

Eddie gives him a look so full of genuine worry that Richie has to look away.

“Do you think we should share the bed?”

Richie blanches. “What?”

“Well, the kiss worked, didn’t it?” Eddie says, defensively, but his hooded eyes stare back at Richie, looking embarrassed. “I’m just saying. Mike was right, about triggering each other’s memories. The kiss worked.” He looks back to the headrest, at the pillows. “And I kinda just want to lie down.”

Richie knows he should want this, and every fiber of his being is thrumming with nervous energy at the prospect of sharing a bed with Eddie, but this has always been the bit that freaks Richie out. Because as much as his dick is telling him that this is the end of the world and therefore prime time to get laid, there’s something else inside of him saying he wants to gather Eddie in his arms and cuddle him close and fall asleep with his nose in his hair, and-

Richie Tozier doesn’t do that shit, okay?

“Are you, uh, sure you don’t just want to try making out again?”

It’s as if Eddie can read his mind, his eyes flashing angrily. “Hey, jackass, I’m scared too.” He grabs Richie by the collar of his shirt and pulls him close, talking against his lips. “And I don’t know what this is either, and I wish we could remember everything too, but what I do know is you don’t get to kiss me and then pussy out when shit gets real, Richie Tozier.”

Richie doesn’t think he’s ever been as attracted to someone as he is to Eddie right now.

“I’m not – Eddie, I’m not pussying out.”

“Then – shit - get on your side of the bed already.” Eddie orders, patting the mattress with force. His eyes cloud over when Richie just stares at him. “You sleep on the left side, right?”

He does. Eddie knows this.

Richie nods, faintly, then breaks away from Eddie and throws up all over the carpet.

**Winter, 1990**

“You’ve been looking after me?”

“Yeah, genius, you got yourself knocked out.”

“Wow, victim blaming.”

Eddie clicks his tongue, looking serious and annoyed with him, but that’s nothing new. “How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts.” Richie says, still feeling groggy and cotton-headed. He might be drugged. “You’re so cute when you’re worried about me, Eds. Like a sad deer.”

“Stop-”

Richie gasps. “You look like Bambi.”

“Shut up. I do not.” Eddie says, flushing. “Do you remember what happened?”

“I was playing hockey with those elementary schoolers?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And then-” Richie groans, fingers coming up to try and touch his forehead, but Eddie snatches his hand away. “Aw, man. Goddamnit. Did I seriously get taken out by some shitty little kids and a hockey puck?”

“Yep.” Eddie pops his lips, pushing Richie’s hair back. “You have a bump.”

Richie pretends to cry. “Did you kiss it better for me?”

Eddie purses his lips. “No.”

“Heal me, Dr. K.” Richie plays with Eddie’s fingers, smiling sweetly. “I need your magic touch.”

Eddie lets out an exasperated breath, his eyes darting over to the door, and Richie realizes he’s in his own bedroom, even though he doesn’t fully remember how he got there.

“Okay.”

Eddie leans down, quickly, and presses a light peck to Richie’s forehead. Richie winces, pain blossoming.

“Did it shrink?”

“No, it’s still the size of a second head.”

“Would you still like me if I had a second head?”

“Not if it could fucking talk.” Eddie says, but Richie kind of feels like he’s lying.

Richie reaches up to poke at the worried eyebags under Eddie’s eyes. They’re kind of there permanently, but they get more pronounced when he hasn’t been sleeping. “Jeez, Eddie, have you been watching me all night?”

“You went down really hard.” Eddie says, as if that’s an adequate answer, his dark eyebrows knitting together. “I don’t care what the nurse said, it’s completely within the realm of possibility that you could have a concussion and choke on your own vomit.”

Richie feels a wave of emotion. He holds his arms out. “Come here, dummy.”

“Don’t call me a dummy.” Eddie mutters, but there’s no heat in it, looking down at Richie’s arms longingly. “What if your Mom or Dad come in like last time?”

Richie’s Mom had walked in on them few weeks ago, curled around each other, Richie’s nose in Eddie’s hair. They had thankfully been asleep, and his parents hadn’t said anything about it, aside from delicately suggesting that they were perhaps getting too old for sleeping in the same bed.

Richie shrugs. “I’m awake now.”

“I don’t know-”

“Come on.” Richie says, feeling happy and warm, even if he is a little dizzy. “I wanna cuddle.”

“Fine, but I’m not going to sleep.” Eddie says, stubborn as usual, climbing under the bed sheets when Richie lifts them invitingly. “Move over.” Eddie takes a long-ass time to get comfortable, but once he does, he doesn’t move a muscle, curled into Richie’s side like a cat. “Tell me if you feel sick.”

Richie yawns, lacing his fingers with Eddie’s over his chest. “’Kay.”

Eddie yawns too, but tries to hide it in Richie’s neck.

“Thought you weren’t going to sleep?”

“M’not.”

“Yeah?” Richie grins, trailing his fingers up and down Eddie’s back absently. “Why are you closing your eyes then?”

“I’m resting my eyes, Richie, it’s not the same.”

“Oh, of course, silly me.”

Eddie’s out like a light once he settles, making soft, snuffly noises in his sleep, and Richie’s eyes shutter closed shortly after too, dreaming of peaches.

**Present, 2016.**

Richie opens his eyes to see Eddie leaning over him.

“You’ve been looking after me?”

“Yeah, to make sure you don’t choke on your own vomit, shitbrains.” Eddie says. He has dark circles under his eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.”

Eddie smiles. “_Good_.”

Richie feels an overwhelming urge to kiss him, but he can taste his own vomit in his mouth.

“So it, uh, it wasn’t a dream.” Richie says, indicating between himself and Eddie with a limp wave of his hand.

“No. None of it was.” Eddie says, wearily. He’s perched on the side of the bed and Richie registers vaguely that he’s kind of in the middle, propped halfway onto his side with what feels like about four pillows under his head. “Do you remember everything?”

“Yeah, the fucking clown is back and we were like, super gay together in the eighties.” Richie murmurs, his voice a little throaty. Eddie doesn’t smile and Richie softens, feeling bad. “Sorry you had such bad taste in men.”

Eddie sighs, and his face says _irritated_ but his eyes say _fond_, and Richie desperately wants to imprint the sight into his memory.

“Yeah, what the fuck was I thinking?.” Eddie mutters, and he reaches over to remove a cold washcloth that Richie hadn’t realised was on his forehead, checking his temperature with his fingers. “You better not throw up again.”

Richie reaches up to touch Eddie’s tired eye bags. “Do you remember when I got hit by a hockey puck and you thought I had concussion?”

“Oh, yeah.” Eddie says softly, looking surprised. He traces his finger over Richie’s forehead, feather-light, as if the bump was still  
there. “It was huge. Almost as big as your ego.”

“You kissed it better.” Richie says, moved. “You stayed up all night.”

“See if I kiss you again.” Eddie says wryly. “I made you throw up.”

“That’s not why I threw up.” Richie protests, angry at himself and distressed at the prospect of Eddie never kissing him again. He reaches out to take Eddie’s fingers, holding them over his chest. Eddie gives him an unamused look but lets him do it, taking pity on him. “Man, this a familiar sight. You looking after me, all worried.”

“I don’t know about that.” Eddie murmurs. He’s pushing Richie’s hair back with his free hand, looking listless, and Richie isn’t sure he’s even aware that he’s doing it. “I seem to remember it the other way around.”

Richie blinks, and he remembers snapshots of that day in the Neibolt house, cupping Eddie’s soft cheeks in his hands and knowing with great certainty that they were both about to die.

There was no way Richie could have ignored his feelings after that. He had looked death in the eye and protecting Eddie was still the only thing he cared about.

“You should sleep.” Richie tells him, wondering if Eddie will get into bed with him, even though he probably smells like shit.

Eddie doesn’t even consider it. “No.” He leaves his hand in Richie’s hair. “You should go back to sleep though.”

Richie pretends to think about it. “How long have I got?”

Eddie checks his watch. “An hour. Maybe two, I think.”

“Great.” Richie pushes himself upright, with some difficulty. The world spins at an alarming rate but he forces himself into recovery, for Eddie’s sake.

“Um, what the fuck do you think you’re doing, dumbass?” Eddie asks, looking ready to push Richie back down on the bed, like he’s an asylum patient trying to break out of his straitjacket. “Go back to sleep!”

“You have a whole two hours.” Richie says, standing up and placing his hands on Eddie’s shoulders to keep him in place, squeezing them before he can protest. “To rest your eyes.”

Eddie seems mad about it, but closes his mouth and looks like he’s chewing on a hornet’s nest, then exhaustion clearly wins out. “Fine. But I _am_ just resting my eyes. _And_ I’m setting an alarm.”

Richie’s heart feels like it’s full to burst. “Sure. No sleeping. I believe you.”

Eddie doesn’t move, staring up at him irritably, like he’s expecting Richie to add something else.

“What?”

“Can I stay here?” Eddie asks, and it kind of sounds more like a demand than a question. “I haven’t been in my own bedroom this whole time and it feels weird to go back now.”

“Oh.” Richie says. “I, uh. It never occurred to me you’d go back to your room.”

Eddie smiles then, small and brief. He really does look tired, and Richie wants to curl up next to him, savor every second of the next two hours, but he knows he can’t.

Eddie does that mind-reading thing again. “Okay, but if you want to get back in bed, can you, like, shower-”

“Obviously I’m going to fucking shower, Eddie.”

Eddie settles on the right side of the bed, rolling pointedly away from where Richie had been positioned, facing the opposite wall. “Don’t act like I don’t know how gross you are, Richie.” He mumbles, sounding like he’s speaking into the pillow.

Richie doesn’t dignify that with a response, because he’s mostly right.

He stares at Eddie’s back for a few seconds, feeling intensely about it, like he would guard Eddie for days on it end, clown or no clown, then realizes he might be a little delirious. His mouth is bone dry and he notices, with a soft moan, that there’s a glass of water next to Eddie’s toiletry bag on the bedside table, two painkiller tablets next to it.

Richie throws back the pills and gulps down the water, like he hasn’t drank in days, emerging from the desert at last. His eyes fall on a patch of carpet that’s darker in color from the rest, and realizes it’s the same spot he threw up on, only there’s no evidence of it now. His heart swells when he thinks about Eddie on his knees, cleaning up his puke and probably muttering expletives about Richie the whole time, strangely domestic.

_"I fucking love you, Eddie.”_ his fourteen year old self had said, barely able to believe his luck that Eddie liked him back, cuddling close to him in the hammock and expecting to wake up at any moment.

A melancholic feeling settles in Richie's stomach. He had been so happy, back then, and it raises more questions than answers to know that Eddie had reciprocated his feelings - if they loved each other, how did they ever end up separated like this?

He startles when he hears Eddie make soft, snuffling sounds in his sleep and smiles, relaxing, dipping out of the room.

Richie sits on the front steps of the townhouse and smokes a cigarette to calm his mind, hugging himself against the chilly air. Derry had always ran cold in the early hours, even in the Summer. His head swirls with thoughts, all of them about Eddie - teenage Eddie loving him back, Eddie dating a guy in college, Eddie having a wife. He replays the kiss they’d shared last night over and over again in his mind, like he’s scared he’ll forget it if he doesn’t.

As he sits outside, taking stock of the situation in the cool morning light, Richie feels as if the universe is playing a cruel joke on him. He isn’t here to get a second shot at love with Eddie. He knows this. Yet he can’t shake the way he still wants to bundle Eddie into his car and head to Reno.

Jeez. Hungover and heartsick. What a crappy way to go out.

“Hey.”

Speaking of heartsick. Ben’s here.

“Hey, buddy.” Richie shifts over on the step, surprisingly relieved to see him. Maybe it is true about misery loving company. “Pull up a pew.”

Ben sits, shakes his head when Richie offers him his cigarette, and smiles tiredly. “How you feeling, Rich?”

“I’ve been better, dude.” Richie says, releasing a shivery exhale of smoke. “You ever heard the phrase death warmed up? Cause you’re looking at him.”

“Same here.”

“Yeah?” Richie says, smile quirking. “Good to know that even Greek Gods have their off days.”

Ben blinks, like he isn’t sure who Richie is talking about, then it dawns on him and he grins, looking bashful.

“Yeah. This is one hell of an off-day.” Ben says, rubbing his eyes. He doesn’t look like he’s slept. “I feel like I’m losing my mind. I’ve been having a lot of, um, flashbacks.”

Richie sits up straighter. “You mean your memories came back?”

“I wish.” Ben says, shaking his head ruefully. “It’s been kind of traumatic, to be honest. I keep drawing blanks on the things I actually want to remember.”

“Yeah, me and Eddie were trying to, uh, piece some things together last night.” Richie says, his pulse quickening, like he’s exposing private information. He hadn’t considered the possibility of the others remembering something about them that they don’t, and he can already feel the implications of that eating away at him. “But we’ve both still got a case of the ole’ Derry dementia.”

Ben nods understandingly. “Bev too.” His brow furrows. “She doesn’t remember everything either.”

Richie doesn’t pry. He imagines Ben prowling around outside of Bev’s bedroom, trying to listen at the door for any indication of Bill being in there with her, then immediately feels bad for thinking it. Maybe he’s just projecting, but he meant what he said to Eddie last night - he hopes it was Ben’s footsteps that followed Bev upstairs.

“Bummer.” Richie says, meaning it. He flicks some ash from his cigarette and thinks about Eddie, sleeping in his bed, and feels robbed. “It sucks that we’re all running on borrowed time, huh?”

“I know. I can’t even concentrate.” Ben says, looking at his hands. “I mean, it’s so dumb, there’s a - there’s a reason we’re here, and I know I need to be, like, stepping up right now or something, but instead I feel like I’ve regressed to the same scared kid I was twenty-seven years ago.”

That hits a little too close to home for Richie’s liking. Ben gets him.

“Stop it, Benjamin. You’re hot and you’re rich and I won’t hear you talking down about yourself for a second longer, okay?” Richie says, stabbing his cigarette in Ben’s direction when he just sighs, looking mournful. “I’m serious, dude. I’d hate you for being so fucking perfect if you weren’t such a good friend.”

Ben gives him an appreciative smile, but his eyes still look pained. “Thanks, Rich. Really. But I guess I’m just wondering if any of that really matters now, y’know? Not when we’re all back where we started.”

Richie’s about to protest, because he’s just remembered, with a surge of gratitude, how Ben protected a panicking Eddie from the fortune cookie creatures last night and how that totally counts as him _stepping up_, when he realizes that just being seen as a really good _friend_ is exactly what Ben’s afraid of.

“That’s one way to look at it.” Richie says, trying to sound neutral, though Ben’s self-doubt is weighing on his own mind too. “Or, I guess if nothing really matters, why spend your time beating yourself up when you could be out sewing your wild oats?”

“My - my oats?” Ben stammers.

“What do I know? I’m just the trashmouth.” Richie says, grinning when Ben blushes, like he’s been caught thinking about something dirty. “But the way I see it, life’s too short - literally, am I right?”

Ben doesn’t laugh, but he doesn’t seem annoyed by Richie’s dark attempt at humor either, a thoughtful look crossing his face.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Did you, uh, sow any oats last night, Rich?”

Richie almost drops his cigarette. Shit. Ben really _does_ get him.

“What? No. You mean with _Eddie_?” Richie snorts, like this is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard and Ben is very very stupid for even suggesting it. Something twists inside of him at Ben jumping to that conclusion so easily, and he waits for the familiar hot feeling of shame to rush into him, but it never comes. “The closest thing Eddie got to any action last night was cleaning up my puke after I blacked out.”

“Woah, really? He must have been pissed.” Ben says, and Richie wonders if he’s reading too much into how Ben looks genuinely cut up for him. “But hey, if I was sick, I’d want Eddie to be the one looking after me.”

“Yeah, I mean, he-” _Put me to bed and cleaned up and took care of me like he did when we were fifteen and I got hit in the head with a hockey puck_. “You know Eddie, he’ll be telling you all I nearly died and he brought me back from the brink. ”

Ben does laugh then, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “You two haven’t changed a bit. It’s kinda comforting, actually.”

Richie smiles, but his heart isn’t really in it, trying to fight off the memory of Eddie’s wedding ring, cold against his skin. The unpleasant niggling feeling is back, tugging at the corners of his mind, whispering that something awful happened between them, that Richie did something to make Eddie hate him. When he glances back at Ben again, he sees that his face has fallen too, looking similarly haunted by the past.

“Hey, Ben.” Richie says, deciding to cash his chips in and risk it all, because the possibility of Eddie remembering any bad history about him is suddenly unbearable. “What do you remember about me and Eddie?”

If Ben is surprised by him asking, he doesn’t show it. “I remember you two always doing your own thing, even when the rest of us were all there. Like you had your own little Richie and Eddie world.” Ben says, warmly. “I remember feeling kinda jealous about that, actually”

“Do you remember if we stopped?” Richie asks, trying to keep his voice light, because he can’t tell if Ben knows what he’s getting at or not. “Being that way, I mean. We don’t remember anything after being fifteen.”

Ben’s eyebrows knit together, thinking. “Sorry, Richie. I don’t.” He smiles apologetically. “I guess there’s a lot of things you guys kept in that world.”

Richie nods. His last vague memories of Ben involve him locked in the library studying for his AP exams, and Bill moved away a year before graduation, and Stan - well. Richie’s heart sinks, a tiny voice in his head telling him that Stan probably would have known.

That leaves only one other person.

Sure, they have a clown to kill. But Mike Hanlon is _not_ getting away from Richie this time.

“Thanks for building that clubhouse, Benny.” Richie says, stubbing out his cigarette and standing. Ben blinks up at him. “You gave us all something real special.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello i know this is dense but i am very fragile and i would love to know what you think!! next part will continue from eddie's perspective! thanks for reading ♥


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